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Comment by magduf | Hacker News Reader

I guess you're a big fan of monopolies, huh?

The Apple "monopoly" is the biggest driver of progress in consumer computing.

Microsoft only sells adware. Google is spyware (and crapware). Linux tablets don't even exist.

Apple focuses on compatibility, user experience, performance, hardware, ease of use (yet still useful for power users). Sure it's been dropping the ball a bit in the past few years, but it's still lightyears ahead of any competitor.

It amazes me that Google's managed to maintain this sense of being the underdog with almost 80% share worldwide. Apple is far from a monopoly. Hilariously far, in fact.

Both Google and Apple have monopoly power.

Pure monopoly means single supplier, but companies having monopoly power where they have the ability to increasingly behave independently of competitive pressures is more common. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lerner_index

Apple should be forced to stop these anticompetitive practices.

Just to clarify, you are saying Apple and Google are a co-monopoly because there is no third choice, or what? The link to Lerner index says it's pretty much impossible to actually calculate so I don't see where that's going.

When your differentiation is in your ecosystem how is this action independent of competitive pressure? Their customers are end users and the App Store is one (and how they've run it) of their best selling points.

Your line of thought only works if the developers are the customer- they are not in Apple's case.

It's not just my personal line of thought.

Your line of thought is the narrow "Chicago School" thinking Robert Bork in the US in the 90s where the sole focus is on the benefits to consumers and overall efficiency.

An instance, but in no way covering the entire picture.

One of the reasons why Google Chrome enjoys its monopoly is because Apple does a terrible job with its browser Safari. Terrible. I mean it's a train-wreck! Since iOS 10 or probably little later they have done nothing but destroy how the web apis are supposed to function, abusing every single accessibility guideline into something that is at best a line of defense to promote their app store.

I hesitantly moved away from iPhone X to Android Pixel last month.

Or could it be that the reason Chrome “enjoys” a monopoly is because Apple doesn’t care about “winning” the browser war? Why should it? That was last decades battle. Not even MS cares about the browser enough anymore to invest in its own engine.

This is the difference between companies trying to sell products and companies trying to sell attention. Apple doesn't benefit at all from people using Safari, because Safari is not a surveillance tool. Therefore, "marketing" Safari is at best, an afterthought.

Chrome on the other hand... well, it's Google, one of the largest purveyors of advertising. If you don't think Chrome is watching you, I've got a bridge to sell you.

If they didn't care then we would have alternative rendering engine along with safari. They know that allowing competition is a threat to their business model.

Since the submission is about MacOS and Electron....

And are you commenting about just macos and electron? Anyway does not change my answer.

It should since MacOS allows alternate browser engines....

But there is no option in iOS. Why are Apple afraid of the competition?

So Apple “is afraid of competition” on an app it makes no money off, but allows the Kindle book store, Spotify, plenty of streaming services, Google Maps, two popular Office alternatives to iWork, has built in extensibility points to allow alternative storage providers to iCloud, alternate podcast providers, it basically built a feature into iOS just for alternative password managers, etc.

Maybe it’s telling the truth when it says there are security concerns?

Those are installed using apple approved app store. Which requires a subscription and payment of 30%. You can give behind security but the truth is they are afraid.

If they allow alternate app store or browsers then yes apple is bold. Until then they need to consider their bottomline which requires sometimes bowing to China as well!

That’s also not true. You don’t have to go through Apple to run a subscription service. You can have people subscribe/buy content outside of the store and let them use it within the store. Netflix, Spotify, Amazon (Kindle, Audible, etc.), AT&T Now, Sling, LinuxAcademy, and countless others make you pay for subscriptions/content outside of the store.

Chrome has 1.5% marketshare on iOS but 70% on desktop. So "Mobile Safari sucks" doesn't seem like a good theory.

Funny how you seem to be tortured by even the idea of Safari, while I (and millions of other people) use it every day and haven't even noticed these supposed atrocities.

Having a favorite competitor in an industry is not that same thing as being a big fan of monopolies. That doesn't make sense. Having a healthy competitive industry does not mean that every person uses products from multiple competitors.

Having a favorite competitor is fine. Having so much loyalty to that competitor, however, is cultish. What happens when you get tired of that competitor, and some other competitor is offering something better? Or your favorite becomes abusive and you want to move? By supporting that competitor so strongly, you've encouraged monopolistic behavior, and now you're going to suffer for it, because there won't be good competitors any more, or you'll have a very hard time freeing yourself and migrating to the competition.

That is about the worst faith interpretation of parent's comment I would come up with, even if I paid a consultant.

That's not what a monopoly is.

Once again HN posters fail to understand the definition of a monopoly.

Not a monopoly, but a walled garden.

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